More surprising was the court’s decision to review the venue issues. The district court never gave much credence to the argument that pretrial publicity and Enron’s stature in Houston tainted potential jurors, and Skilling’s attorney, Dan Petrocelli, never mentioned it his is argument before the appeals court.

As Petrocelli notes in today’s story, the Supremes haven’t issued a major decision on venue since the 1970s, so they may believe the Enron trial, which included heavy coverage by electronic media and blogs, is a way to keep up with changing technology.

Part of me, of course, was ready for the Enron saga to end years ago. After all, we’ve moved on to other financial scandals, on a scale that, quite frankly, are far bigger than Enron. Yet Enron remains one of the greatest and most colorful corporate frauds of all times, and it seems only fitting that the case would ultimately wind up before the Supremes.